YPSILANTI + ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN Wake. Coffee and Salad. Talk to Erica. Read baseball articles. The Giants outfield is terrible. Unpack my bags and arrange my work/ sleep area behind the bookcase. Stella and Erica are on the couch talking about Bread Face. Receive a text that there's been a death in the family. It's hot and the air is heavy in this house. The look of the sky reminds me of summer in Sudbury.

Eric and I have our first practice. We haven't played since last fall's tour. The practice goes well. After practice, on the way to dinner Erica uses the word "pussy" in a sentence referring to her lack of courage in negotiating with the beautiful Ethiopian from the previous evening. I tell the story on how I was scolded recently by my friend Vanessa who had said: "that part of my body is not cowardly." I had replied that I wasn't talking about that part of your body, that's not how I use that word, but I love you and would never want to hurt your feelings so I'll say scaredy cat or whatever from now on. Stella, sitting next to me in the back seat says that my friend's scolding of me is due to a misunderstanding of feminism. Eric makes a false equivalency joke about a disembodied sense of fear.

We have dinner at Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor, outside on the metal patio furniture, indulging the cool relief afforded by a recently passed summer rain. On the way home we witness Erica's friend from college being asked out by a Doctor on the sidewalk and Erica interrupts the scene to invite the woman to our house concert tomorrow evening. The poor doctor, clearly nervous already, was most likely unsuccessful after we departed.